JJB531

I think the concept of all ALS ambulances across the board in Westchester County is an excellent one, but... When we look at systems like Port Chester, Yonkers, New Rochelle, Mount Vernon, White Plains, Ossining, and Harrison... we are talking about systems who have call volumes that are in the thousands. The call volumes are there to support the concept of staying away from the Fly Car methodology of delivering Advanced Life Support and instead utilize dedicated ALS ambulances staffed with Paramedics. The majority of these busier systems utilize the Fly Car methodology for field supervisors who are available to stop the clock should the systems units be tied up on active calls. Smaller systems like Croton, who are responding to 700 calls for service (roughly 2 calls per day), and out of those 700 annual calls, 200 actually require ALS level interventions, it may be more financially feasible to utilize the concept of a regional approach to ALS coverage through the use of Fly Cars, rather then a staffed ALS ambulance. When more then half of your annual call volume are BLS level calls, is it feasible to tie up a Paramedic for an hour for a BLS level call, rather then having your medic go back into service when not needed for a BLS level call and remain available for the next job where ALS level interventions may desperately be needed? The other issue at hand is although it may seem like there is an abundance of actively employed Paramedics in Westchester County because of all the systems prevalent, when you really think about it, the number of medics currently working in Westchester is not as great as it seems. This is because if there are 20 ALS agencies in Westchester (a ficticious number), you have the same 8 Paramedics going from Agency "A", to Agency "B", to Agency "C". The point I'm getting at is that the same 100 or so (once again, a ficticous number since I don't have the time to go to the WREMSCO website and count all the MAC'ed Paramedics) Paramedics REMAC'ed and working in Westchester County are all working for multiple agencies. To add another ALS system where you have to tap into the already overworked pool of Paramedics is going to lead to more difficulty covering shifts and the ever so prevalent threat of Paramedics who are working 16, 24, 32, even 48 hours straight going from one agency to the next. If smaller systems like Croton, and I keep mentioning Croton only because they are the agency being discussed in this thread since there are numerous smaller systems here in Westchester County, were to look at the idea of having a 24/7 staffed ALS ambulance, I think it would be more feasible to take on a regional approach with the surrounding communities of Cortlandt, Ossining/New Castle, Yorktown to establish a system with fully staffed ALS ambulances (note I said ambulanceS, plural), where response times can meet the national standards and taxpayers can get the service they expect and deserve. Of course, and no surprise to anyone here since it's been pointed out numerous times, this concept will depend on surrounding agencies to pool resources, work together, and get past the boundaries of the "my town" syndrome that has crippled the Westchester "EMS system" (if we can even call it that).

Lol, what can I say, I'm a popular guy!

Croton had temporarily contracted with OVAC for 1 EMT, Monday to Friday from 7a to 7p, with good results. Calls were getting covered, the rig was making it out the door, and the number of times OVAC went mutual aid into Croton significantly reduced. From a cost saving perspective, as well as being able to keep the Croton volunteers involved in the systm, Croton was looking for a solution to the problem they were having without "breaking the bank", and since the 1 EMT set-up has worked well for them so far, they opted to stick with it and increase the coverage to 24/7. If problems begin to arise, they can always go back to the drawing board and reassess their system, but like I said, for now its working for them.

Chief Sam Lubin at Ossining "VAC". 8 Clinton Avenue, Ossining, (914) 942-9204, he is typically there Monday to Friday day tours.

I agree with NWFD's line of thought on this topic. I think exposing individuals to the emergency service fields from a young age is extremely beneficial. Speaking personally, I started volunteering with my town's Ambulance Youth Corps at 14 years old, receiving training in basic first aid and CPR. By 15 I was made a dispatcher (thanks RWC130), receiving calls for service from the Police Department and communicating with the ambulances, and became familiar with radio operations and etiquette. At 16 I had completed the New York State First Responder course (thanks Helicopper) and was riding as an attendant with senior members. By the time I was 18, I was fairly comfortable "tech-ing" calls myself and after a few months was made a crew chief, being able to run calls on my own. I think if it wasn't for the benefits and experience I obtained from such a young age I wouldn't be where I am today in emergency services. The benefits are obvious. Learning all of the equipment used by EMT's, learning how the EMS system operates, becoming familiar with emergency service terminology, learning how to use the radios and proper radio etiquette, learning how to work as a team, being exposed to different types of medical emergencies and "trauma jobs", learning effective communication with patients, family members, hospital staff, and other emergency services personnel, etc. are all of the great benefits to starting from such a young age. If the exposure and experience is positive and done properly, it builds an excellent, solid foundation for future EMT's, Paramedics, and Firefighters. The amount of success to these programs relies on not just the young individuals, but probably relies more heavily on the mentors, the senior EMT's and Firefighters who intend to teach new members the in's and out's of emergency services. If impressionable younger members of emergency services start off with poor exposure, poor training, and poor mentoring, then you are committing them to fail miserably. But, as NWFD pointed out, the level of maturity and life experience of a 16 year old is not enough to run calls on their own and act as the sole responsible medical provider or firefighter. This age should be an "age of grooming", so by the time an individual reaches the age of 18, they have hopefully a good solid 2 years of experience to prepare them to run calls on their own and either begin to pursue a career or continue to volunteer as a solid, well prepared, professional member of their agency.

Lohud Article According to the Journal News, both the police and fire commissioners in Yonkers will be resigning at the end of this year.

Another factor is that there is typically higher turnover in police departments, with more annual retirements as compared to most fire departments in this area. These vacancies are simply not filled, leading to a "natural" decline in the size of the department. NYSP has not had a recruit class in several years, NYPD recruit classes have been minimal in size and barely make a dent in replacing the numbers of police officers retiring each year. Many local police agencies are at their lowest manning in recent history, with no signs of improvement in the near future, and ever since 9/11 with counterterrorism duties now an added responsibility for local law enforcement, the old adage "do more with less" is straining law enforcement agencies ability to continue to protect the public, yet the job still gets done. The decreasing size of departments through attrition leads to overall reductions of manpower within the ranks of the department as well (i.e. decreased uniform promotions, decreased manpower in specialized units and details, etc.) Fire departments are obviously not immune to the state of the economy, and face a lot of the same issues police departments do with the factors previously mentioned.

I'm quite aware of the previous threads regarding lights on POV's. PEMO was looking for clarification on whether it was law or a courtesy in NJ because of the conflicting statement made by either a police official or misquoted by the author of the news piece. Clarification was adequately provided with the facts you provided. The "here we go again" comment is the reason why certain threads spiral into unproductive, one-liner riddled, useless rants.

Care to elaborate?

Sounds like the statement was intended to relay that while common sense would dictate it's courteous to allow an emergency responder displaying a blue light to pass, it is also the law and punishable if broken.

Just because the majority of the first responders were volunteers doesn't mean a cheap bill for an extended and involved operation.

Pelham Manor Officer Critical

Can you please elaborate on this statement? I hope I'm not interpreting it to mean that the volunteers can ensure the taxpayers will foot the bill for their gas if they stick together and just not bother to respond to emergency calls for service?

It was displayed on my home television. The test lasted all of 10 seconds.

Bull, I would like to address your discontent with my questioning of the sources another poster now that I am back at my computer. Regardless if you think I was avoiding answering your questions, the simple fact is that it would have taken me 2 hours to send a well thought out reply from my cell phone. Since I am now back at my computer, I am more then happy to respond to your questions and assertions. First I would like to address your question of "who cares". Personally, as a law enforcement officer, I care. This is an issue that is related to my line of employment, along with INIT915, and several other members of the law enforcement community, and is an issue that is worth discussing amongst us law enforcement professionals. This was not your "run of the mill" jumper, this was an individual who was armed and required a conducted energy device to be utilized to bring them into custody. A civilian engaging in bringing this person into custody raises questions of scene control by the law enforcement officers on scene, and for us is worth discussing. INIT put it very well, and I was going to ask the same question of you, but he beat me to it. If a poster made a claim that a bunch of firemen were standing around while a civilian was fighting a fire with a garden hose, I would expect a member of the Fire Service here to question the validity of this claim. Day after day, I read threads here on EMTBravo that are Fire Service related, where issues are raised and questions are asked about things that I personally don't care about and seem trivial to me simply because I'm not in the Fire Service. So should I start questioning "who cares" every time I read a Fire Service related matter that seems trivial to me? Of course not, what's not important to me may be an important issue to someone else for reasons that I can't understand because it doesn't pertain to me or my line of work. While EMTBravo is "fire service heavy", there are law enforcement officers on this site who enjoy discussing law enforcement issues, and dispelling some of the rumors and myths associated with law enforcement, since it's amazing how everyone is an expert when it comes to police work. In fact, I was able to dispel one rumor based on my questioning of the handcuffing that was brought up by another poster, and educate that person on proper police tactics and procedures when it comes to handcuffing EDP's. If you ask me, just for that reason alone, my questioning of the original claims was well worth it then. Perhaps I could ask why you care that I have taken a peaked interest in the claims made by another poster, claims that still have been ignored by the original poster? At no time did I make any statements, claims, or assumptions as to who handcuffed this individual. I clearly stated in my initial post that I found it to be suspect, given the circumstances, that a civilian Thruway Authority worker handcuffed an individual who was armed with an edged weapon and required Troopers to deploy a conducted energy device. My uncertainty with the validity of the original statement is based on my experience, as I would have found it uncommon for a law enforcement officer to permit a civilian to handcuff an armed individual. Does it happen? Sure it does, and generally when it does happen it happens under extreme circumstances which are worth discussing because there are things to be learned from the incident. As an LEO, we can then study the tactics utilized, the efficiency of the less lethal device utilized, how well the scene was controlled by the LEO's who responded. But there's no point to starting a discussion when the initial information provided that could raise all of these questions is false. So you can ask me all you like what factual proof I have to my claims, but I haven't made any claims. I merely questioned, along with INIT915, the validity of the statement made by another poster, and have inferred from the lack of response to our questions, that the information provided was not accurate. As I stated before, if this information was factually correct, then the issue of scene control arises and is something that is worth discussing. But before we get into a entire discussion based on incorrect information, I wanted to get the real story, and not just a "shot in the dark" assumption. If I had proof or factual documentation, then I would have provided my sources and informed the original poster that they were wrong and the Troopers handcuffed this individual. Where in any of my posts did I say that the Troopers were the one's who applied the handcuffs? To infer that I need some kind of concrete proof to question claims made by someone else is a bit silly. IMHO, I feel my experience, as well as the experience of several other of our knowledgeable and well educated professionals in their respective emergency service field, is all the "proof" they need to able to question someones claims that may seem inaccurate or false. I hope I answered your questions and addressed your concerns. If you require any further information, please feel free to PM me. Joe

I will be more then happy to address your concerns when I am at a computer as I am not going to attempt to type one out from my cell phone.

EMTBravo Members, Myself and the members of the staff have been recently discussing the possibility of endeavoring to create an online magazine with content that is provided by you, the members! EMTBravo is about sharing knowledge, information, and individual professional development. Authoring articles for trade magazines and professional publications is an excellent way to advance one's career as a professional emergency service provider, a great addition to your resume, and just another way to "get your name out there" amongst your peers, plus it gives you an opportunity to share your knowledge and experience with other emergency service providers in a magazine style format. We are currently seeking article submissions from the EMTBravo community. Articles can be on a wide variety of topics pertaining to Police, Fire, EMS, OEM and other emergency service fields. We encourage everyone to take this opportunity to share your knowledge and experience. You do not need to be an "EMTBravo guru" to write an article for EMTBravo, but must be mature, knowledgeable, and professional in the delivery of your content. This includes proper spelling and grammar, and taking the time to deliver a well thought out and informative article that the members will enjoy reading. Articles should contain some degree of substance to them, and be at least one typewritten page in length. I don't want to place a limit on how long your article can be, but please be reasonable with your submissions, it's an article, not a novel! Once we have collected enough content, reviewed it, gathered additional information, we are going to deliver this magazine to the membership in an online viewable format, where it will be easily accessed by the membership. As I previously mentioned, we are looking for writers from all walks of Emergency Services, from Youth Group/Junior Corps members to seasoned Fire/Police/EMS veterans. Articles you submit should reflect on your personal experience. For example, if you are a Junior Corps member, consider writing an article about Training Ideas for Junior Corps, or Recruitment for Junior Corps. I wouldn't suggest writing an article on Technical Rescue as a Junior Corps member. We are currently looking to do a quarterly publishing based on the amount of content we receive from YOU! Articles should be written in Word Format, and please include a brief Bio along with your article to including your field, years of experience, and any other pertinent information you would like to include. I will continually post additional information, including an email address to submit your articles. If anyone has any questions and/or legitimate, constructive ideas for this endeavor, please feel free to PM me or post them in this thread. Thank you for your interest, now get writing! Joseph Bucchignano JJB531

As stated before, it's not a matter of who cuffed the guy, it's a matter of pointing out and correcting false information that was disseminated through non-factual statements that had no legitimate source to back up the claim. As a law enforcement officer, I have a peaked interest in the original statement about who cuffed the guy.

While photos are fun to look it, and can contain educational value in a forum type setting where discussions can be had about them, they provide little educational value in the content of a magazine without the ability to openly discuss. The idea of this magazine is to be both a training tool and a form of professional development for the members. If people want to see photos, there are plenty of them here on EMTBravo, and the magazine should not take away from the excellent photo submissions provided by the members. If photos are pertinent to a particular article, then by all means they should be included if they are going to add to the educational value of the article, but to simply throw in photographs just so people have something to look at takes away from the purpose of the magazine.

Thank you for the link, but I read the lohud article when it was originally written. It really doesn't answer any questions I have, because I already know the answer to the questions that have posed to the original poster. This is more about clarifying inaccurate information being distributed without any evidence or proof of claims made that civilian workers are out there handcuffing armed EDP's post-deployment of a conducted energy device. EDP's who go to the hospital are routinely handcuffed by law enforcement, especially when they have shown a propensity for violence or their actions have led law enforcement to take more aggressive measures of the force continuum to bring them into custody. New York State Mental Health Law empowers Law Enforcement Officers to restrain (handcuff) individuals who have a propensity of violence or are likely to cause harm to themselves or others. Since this individual clearly fit that category, the fact that this individual went to the hospital for evaluation doesn't automatically negate him from being handcuffed.

Sounds like a good idea. I am not criticizing you, because I like the idea, so please don't take what I'm about to say the wrong way because I want to clarify one point. I know there is an abundance of career and volunteer firefighters here on EMTBravo, but the idea of this magazine is to not focus on one single emergency service field, but to incorporate Law Enforcement and EMS with an even distribution of content across the board. I want to stay away from this magazine being solely a Fire related, EMS related, or LE related venue, but rather contain an equal share of content.

I don't think so at all. They were excellent articles and I think the membership would greatly benefit by republishing them here for the membership to read.

I believe INIT915 answered your question regarding the number of MRT Troopers working. A full time unit, with the training and knowledge to handle this type of incident, out of Stewart with a 20 minute ETA to the scene. Not too shabby if you ask me. Yes the NYPD has experience in these type of incidents, but plain and simple has enough of their own work with protestors right now to be tasked with handling someone elses problem. While I have no doubt the members of the NYPD would have been more then willing to come and assist with this type of incident, the State Police MRT Troopers are hightly trained, hightly motivated, highly competent, and highly capable of handling this type of situation that was occurring in their own jurisdiction, and if they needed the help from an outside agency, they would have called for it. Correct the Thruway Authority workers have made grabs from the bridge before, and they're comfortable working at heights, and are familiar with the architecture of the bridge itself, along with the dangers associated with it. But I highly doubt many of these Transit Authority workers are trained, experienced, or comfortable in dealing with an EDP who is now armed with an edged weapon. This is where I have a slightly difficult time believing that a civilian Thruway Authority worker jumped in the middle of several troopers who just tased an EDP who was in possession of an edged weapon and handcuffed this individual.

That doesn't answer INIT915's question. Yes, an OFF duty Police Officer from Yonkers was involved in this incident, but INIT915 is questioning the original posters contention that a Thruway Authority worker handcuffed an EDP who was armed with a knife after the EDP was tased by responding Troopers... a claim that I too find hard to believe and inaccurate, hence the reason INIT915 has questioned the posters assertions that this is in fact what happened.

The Tappan Zee Bridge is New York State Police jurisdiction, not NYPD, not Greenburgh. NYPD should not have to deplete their resources in the Bronx/Manhattan to handle a job that can be obviously handled by the State Police in their own jurisdiction. How many Tech Rescue members of Greenburgh PD were working the day tour today? How many would have to be called in from home to handle this job? Would there be any time saving benefit to having Tech Rescue trained Police Officers from Greenburgh first drive in from their homes to GPD HQ, suit up, and drive to the Tappan Zee Bridge, or just fly in on-duty MRT Troopers to deal with a situation in their jurisdiction?